By Charles Brun: IBF featherweight champion Kiko Martinez and former IBF 126-lb champion Josh Warrington have agreed to a deal for March 26th in a match that will be staged in the UK and shown on DAZN.
This will be Kiko Martinez’s first defense of his IBF featherweight title that he captured last November with a sixth round knockout win over Kid Galahad in Sheffield, England. Galahad is moving up in weight to super featherweight.
Kiko giving Warrington home country advantage
Despite being the champion, Martin (43-10-2, 30 KOs) will be defending his IBF 126-lb title in the home country of Warrington (30-1-1, 7 KOs).
Hopefully, the Spaniard Kiko doesn’t live to regret his decision in facing Warrington in the UK rather than in Spain or a neutral country like the United States.
Martinez has been a roadwarrior during the last several years, traveling to the UK repeatedly to take on Kid Galahad, Zelfa Barrett, Warrington, and Carl Frampton.
It’s a questionable move on Kiko’s part in choosing to defend against Warrington rather than electing to fight a more deserving contender ranked in the top ten.
Warrington (30-1-1, 7 KOs) is coming into the fight with Martinez under a black cloud after his rematch with Mauricio Lara was ruined with his head-butting last September in his hometown of Leeds, UK. Lara was badly cut, resulting in the fight being halted after two rounds.
Warrington put on a head-butting clinic, looking like a billy goat let loose inside the ring with Lara. The Leeds native Warrington showed textbook form in how to take out his unsuspecting opponent Lara with repeated head-butts.
Rather than the referee quickly warning and disqualifying Warrington for his head-butts, the fight lasted until poor Lara’s face was cut to ribbons, resulting in the match being halted.
The match was officially ruled as a second round technical draw, but many boxing fans felt that Warrington had intentionally head-butted Lara to avoid a second knockout loss to the tough Mexican fighter.
Has Warrington’s punch resistance disappeared?
Last February, the younger, stronger 23-year-old Lara obliterated Warrington by a ninth round knockout in front of his own fans in Leeds. Lara dropped Warrington twice in the fight that resembled a massacre.
Going into the match, it was supposed to be an easy stay busy fight for Warrington, who had recently vacated his IBF title rather than defend it against Kid Galahad.
This will be a rematch between the two featherweights, as Warrington defeated Martinez (43-10-2, 30 KOs) by a questionable 12 round majority decision five years ago in May 2017 in Josh’s hometown of Leeds, UK.
It’ll be interesting to see if Warrington’s chin can hold up under the heavy hands of Martinez, who can punch with the same kind of power as Mauricio Lara.
There are question marks about whether Warrington’s punch resistant has deteriorated since his loss to Lara last year.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to see if Warrington’s chin has gone downhill because of the head-butting he did in the rematch with Lara.
If Warrington ruins this fight too with his head-butting, he may find it difficult to get the top-rung fighters to face him because they’re not going to want to watch their efforts ruined by cuts.